


Rum on their tongues

by leadingrebel



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: After Neal's death, After Neverland, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Secrets confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3649566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leadingrebel/pseuds/leadingrebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No Jolly Roger. No home. </p><p>Nothing. No one. </p><p>When she saw David made a hint to get up and reach his jacket, she almost jumped and ran to hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rum on their tongues

Her steps against the stairs of the apartment seemed to synchronize with the thunders echoing beyond the walls.

She wished she could sleep as soundly as Henry was; losing someone you can’t remember must be really practical.

David and Snow’s soft muttering coming from the living room could be easily ignored when she reach the first floor.

The nervous looks they shot her when they saw her and how they hurry to speak lower, it could be ignored as well.

The fact that not even the thunders could prevent her to hear their conversation as she walked into the kitchen, that wasn’t that easy to ignore.

“He didn’t seem to want to have anyone on sight, Snow…”

“Look at this storm… we don’t even know if his ship has made its way back to Storybrooke.”

David frowned and looked to the ground, he closed his eyes and, when he opened them again, concern stained his voice.

“I should go looking for him, right?”

“It would let you get some sleep tonight, at least.”

Emma held still the cup that teetered on the counter after slipped out of her hands, the sound of ceramic against ceramic resonating through all the room, stopping abruptly the conversation.

She put the cup back on the counter, with trembling fingers, and turned to her parents.

“The  _Jolly Roger_  is not here?” she asked casually, though Emma actually knew it was a ridiculously unnecessary question.

“We don’t know.” Snow answered.

“If it is, no one has seen it yet.” David clarified.

“Ah.”

Emma rested her lower back on the edge of the counter and closed her hands over it at her sides.

“Emma…” Snow started, but when she saw her daughter didn’t look up at her, she sighed. “Do you need anything?”

Emma swallowed and took a breath. No. I don’t need anything. Don’t worry. I don’t want you to worry. Don’t do it. She sighed slowly and looked up.

“No. Henry’s asleep.” she pointed to her prominent belly and smiled vaguely. “And you should do the same, that little bean shouldn’t know of adventures until it meets its family…”

“Emma. Stop.”

She saw David look away and Snow’s jaw clenched.

“Don’t do that. Don’t you dare do that.”

“What?”

“Using your sibling to make us forget about your problems, like that was what we’d do when it’s born.”

Emma looked at her mother’s eyes through her eyelashes. Almost apologizing.

She was not being fair with them, she knew it.

“No, I don’t need anything.” she wanted to say  _‘thank you’_. She couldn’t.

Silence fell upon them. Perhaps the first comfortable silence they had had since that first damn curse.

Her mother caressing her belly, taking a position on the couch that clearly said she was staying there all the time Emma decided to.

David at her side, a lost look on his face and a half-smile forming, aware of moment they were sharing.

Support. Affection. Love.

Family.

The roar of the storm, that seemed to be razing the city, tearing the warm atmosphere apart. The rain cracks against the glass of the windows, as if it wanted to go through it, the air in the room shaking.

Emma looked outside, to the streets —dark, violent, dangerous— and her fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. She feels her muscles tense, she clenched her jaw.

No  _Jolly Roger_. No  _home_.  _Nothing_.

No  _one_.

When she saw David made a hint to get up and reach his jacket, she almost jumped and ran to hers.

“I need some air.” she said, as if it was necessary a clarification.

Perhaps she thought she was fooling them.

Perhaps she thought she could.

Perhaps she was.

But the looks they exchanged were clear enough.

“Emma,” David said when she was already at the door. “tell him he can stay here tonight.”

Emma hesitated for a moment.

Then, she nodded and left the apartment.

·

·

She cursed at some umbrella that probably was at her parent’s —surely not with her. A thick water layer, almost like a waterfall, drew the line between the doorway and storm.

She put on her leather gloves, her beanie and tried to cover as much skin as it was possible with the collar of her clothes. She sighed and placed the hood of her coat over her head.

She changed the weight from foot to foot a couple of times, hesitant.

Perhaps he actually didn’t want to have anyone on sight. Perhaps he wanted to be alone. Suffer with no one around.

She knew perfectly that sensation, and how frustrating could it be when someone insisted to refuse you that moment —she herself had felt like that every minute of the first days her parents had been trying to be actual parents.

But she’d had someone to worry, someone to refuse, someone who had tried. And that had been a relief so big the sensation of not being able to breathe had been masochistically pleasurable.

Killian had no one.

She ran under the rain, and, when a burst of wind made her shake, she thanks the umbrella for stayed at home.

When she reached the corner of the building at the end of the street, she stopped. She didn’t know where she was going, but if she was looking for any possibility, she was going to start at the docks.

When she looked up and ahead, she realized.

She was already running to the docks.

·

·

She found him.

And she hesitated. (Again.)

A shadow almost invisible under the covert of some rocks.

Emma had to come closer with faltering steps, blink away the water, and narrowed her eyes, to make sure it was him.

She walked slowly to him, even with the storm above her, thinking of what she was doing there, she didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know what to do.

She crouched to sit beside him under the little cave the rocks had formed.

It was a space so reduce when she had to move to the right so the water didn’t touch her, she hit his body, and she moved away but when she felt the water soaking her knee she moved to the right again and their arms touched…

She stopped.

This was ridiculous.

She was being ridiculous.

She braced her knees to her chest and looked at the sea.

Waves rose and died on the shore. The water swallowed the lightning. Drops hit the surface incessant. The thunder’s roars breaking the tension formed between them.

At least from Emma’s part, because Killian seemed so immersed in his thoughts she thought he didn’t even know she was there with him.

When Emma lifted her hand and took the new —since few hours— pendant around her neck between her fingers, he watched the movement and looked away, bringing the flask to his lips.

When she had put the necklace in her again, Emma had thought that she would feel guilt flew away. But the only thing she had felt was the weight she had carried over her chest all those years, against her, again.

She couldn’t take all that again. That chain around her neck had kept her from breathing since Neal had abandoned her. Because every day of all those years it had been a reminder of the pain, of no matter to anyone, of being alone in the world, of her  _son_ , of not to trust  _anyone_ again.

Something like that could not become a quick promise of love on deathbed with a few words.

Emma won’t wear it again.

Not now.

Not now that she had learnt to trust again. Now that she wasn’t alone. Her family. Her friends. Her son.

So much way walked… she couldn’t let it go again.

No.

She will leave the necklace over Neal’s coffin. She will keep the memories of him that made her happy.

A frozen drop of water made its way down her back, causing her to shiver.

Hook searched inside his coat —utterly soaked, possibly as heavy as plumb over his shoulders—, he took out a scarf that looked mostly dry, and stretched it over Emma’s shoulders.

She wrapped the scarf around her neck, hesitant she looked up at him and smiled weakly in appreciation.

He couldn’t smile back, but his eyes seemed to apologize for it.

Emma thought that maybe her parents’ concern had been justified.

She stretched her hand to his and kept it there, almost touching, waiting for him to decide if he wanted her at his side in that moment or she could simply go away.

Killian looked at her in the eye, as if he was looking for something, or it could be just a try to focus on anything to get out of his thoughts. He glanced away at the furious sea and ironically, seemed to find calm in it.

He slipped the flask into Emma’s hand.

She took it and drink and it was like she had been waiting for it all the evening.

“I allowed him to go.”

Emma made herself swallow when he suddenly spoke, a whisper among the storm’s roars.

“He didn’t leave, he didn’t escape.  _I_  allowed him to go. Though I knew there was a witch attacking people and he was not completely recovered. But… he said he needed to do it… for his family… I know what that is… but even with that…I should not have… If I hadn’t allowed him to leave the hospital  _nothing_  would’ve occurred.”

Emma tightened her fingers around his flask and looked at him through her eyelashes.

Crystalline eyes and lost gaze, a grimace and a frown.

_It was my fault._

_I’m sorry._

Emma dropped her gaze to the ground.

“We wouldn’t have retrieve Rumpelstiltskin.”

She took another drink and breathed deeply. If they were going to do this, they’d do it right.

“My secret in Neverland… I wished he was dead.  _Dead_. I guess the world has a ironically sick way to grant you wishes.”

She saw his hand clenched over his leg.

“The world doesn’t grant wishes, Swan”

Silence.

“No, I guess it doesn’t.”

The following silence, that included a few more drinks from both of them, lasted less time that they had thought.

“I was making things right. This time. We had started over. All those years… we still were… m’boy…”

Emma swallowed.

Perhaps she didn’t understand the relationship they both had, and had had. Perhaps Hook knew Baelfire and for far more time than she knew Neal. But it wasn’t the moment to ask, and the look on his face was enough for what she wanted to know.

She rose the flask and placed her hand aside of his, he put his fingers around it, intertwining them with hers.

They stayed like that, arms over his leg, fingers around the rum, skins caressing, as the storm roared and the water remained falling around them.

Killian moved his leg until it touched hers.

_I miss him._

Emma leaned until their shoulders touched.

_I miss him, too._

They had lost someone. (Again.) But they weren’t alone.

“You’re staying with us tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [Tumblr](http://leadingrebel.tumblr.com/post/81933747484)


End file.
